Voices ResourcesA website for the worldwide community around the journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

"Where there's music, there can be no evil."
Miguel de Cervantes

"Each one speaks for everyone"
Diego Schapira (http://www.voices.no/columnist/colschapira110405.html)

Cervantes' often quoted statement seems certain, natural and believable however recently I took pause to consider the alternative view. An excerpt from Jon Ronson's book, The Men who Stare at Goats published by Picador in November last year, was reprinted in the Guardian newspaper (http://spinwatch.server101.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=259)

By now we are familiar with the torture practices that have been standard at Abu Ghraib prison. Unfortunately, very quickly we are not particularly shocked to read of the different ways that prisoners were, and possibly continue to be, abused and humiliated. We feel sad and desperate but we can eat our dinner and go to work and even read the paper again the next day. Perhaps we line up this news alongside the other pieces of information that we have gathered about the world; such as ongoing deaths of Chinese miners in the thousands every few months, child labour, genocide in Rwanda, crisis in Sudan... We know something should be done and of course the media, or whatever constellation of interests gather to promote such a story on the front pages of newspapers around the world, must surely ensure that this will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN...

...but then the following realisation leaping out of the article is not so easy for a music therapist to gloss over Prisoners of War in Iraq have been hearing the Barney song played at high volume 24 hours a day. This is done to "soften them up" for interrogation. The story was reported by journalist Adam Piore of Newsweek and instead of causing international outrage and offence, Ronson pointed out that,

Barney had become the funniest joke of the war. Within hours of Adam Piore's Newsweek article appearing, the internet was aflame with Barney torture-related wisecracks such as "An endless loop of the theme song from Titanic by Celine Dion would be infinitely worse! They'd confess everything within 10 minutes!" (Ronson, Guardian, p. 18)

As a music therapist, I am left wondering. What can I do to ensure that music is not used in this way? Is there some appeal I can make to stop this? Am I supposed to just think "ah well, what can one person do?". Why has this been thought of as funny? Where is the humour in mental degradation of others? For all of us working using music every week of our lives to promote life and health, this story is sickening and disgusting. So I wrote a letter to the National Security Advisor in the USA and copied it to some of the heads of music therapy associations...

Dr. Condoleezza Rice
National Security Advisor
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
United States of America
The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
USA

May 23rd, 2005

Dear Dr Rice,

I am a qualified music therapist. For the past thirteen years I have been employed as a university academic responsible for training music therapists to work with people throughout the lifespan who have additional needs. I am distressed to note a report that the US army in Iraq when dealing with prisoner's of war, has used children's songs and other music played over and over at high volume. I urge you as a matter of conscience, and as a highly qualified musician yourself, to use your role on the National Security Council to ensure the practice of using music as a form of mental torture ceases in the armed forces.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Edwards, PhD
Sionna Academy of Music and Dance
University of Limerick
Ireland
Jane.Edwards@ul.ie

Cc:
Professor Suzanne Hanser, PhD, President, World Federation of Music Therapy;

Professor Michele Forinash, PhD, President, American Music Therapy Association;
Jos De Backer, President, European Music Therapy Confederation;
Mary-Rainey Perry, President, RMT, Australian Music Therapy Association Inc.;
Judith Nockolds, Chairperson, Association of Professional Music Therapists,
United Kingdom;

Deirdre Ni Argain, Chairperson, Irish Association of Creative Arts Therapists

What will you do to protest the use of music as torture? At the least, can I urge those of you attending the World Congress of Music Therapy in July in Australia to join the peace vigil?

How to cite this page

Edwards, Jane (2005). War and Music. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 14, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2005-war-and-music